Our neighbor Ken, across the street, is dying (non-COVID). We have been neighbors for over 20 years. They are older and were always pretty curmudgeonly, and we were the young newlyweds who moved in across the street. They didn't seem to care much for the friendly neighbor thing, but were nice enough.
As we have gotten older, they have either softened or softened to us, or maybe both. They talked to us more at the mailbox or in the driveway, and sometimes emailed updates to us on important life things. I always liked running into them.

Ken just retired in February, just before COVID hit in earnest. He is 85, and was having a tough time giving up his work--his own fire extinguisher business he's had for over 30 years. He gave it up in time for COVID and severe heart disease which is now terminal. Life can be so cruel.

I told them they could call any time for anything they need; but they never did, until today. He just needed a store run for applesauce and bananas to help him take his meds. I wondered why his wife, Sharon, didn't go to the store, but I found out when I dropped it off along with some flowers. While he was in the hospital the past three weeks having 25 pounds of fluid drained out of his body (!!), she was in a separate hospital with gall stones! They didn't know if they'd see each other again.

But here they are. Back home. Together. He is so gaunt. Breathless. Tired. I stood at the door in my mask just chatting with them a little. I wanted to do so much more. I want to hug him but I can't even cross their threshold to visit with them.

Sharon informed me they started hospice for him yesterday. They have grown kids, and even a grown granddaughter; but they live far away, and can't visit easily right now with COVID of course, because the same assistance could be a vulnerability in exposure. They are coming tomorrow to install some OT measures to help Ken be more comfortable.

I can't help but wish we knew each other better all these years. We have very little in common, and we weren't close for a reason. But still... And I can't help but think about Chris and I when we're older, and what we'll do when our bodies begin to fail in earnest, and we only have each other. So my heart breaks for them now, and a bit for future us in my mind.

It doesn't help that his name is Ken, which endeared me to him because that was the name of both my father and my brother, and who both died under fairly sudden and miserable circumstances.

I just...had to get that out of me, I guess. I've been weeping off and on every since I walked out of their driveway and I don't know what to do for them, or to take this weight off my heart today.

I was interviewed as part of this back when Obduction was just shipping from KS and I got to play some of the demo at the Indie Game Megabooth at PAX in 2016. I was in a wheelchair that year, recovering from my foot surgery, and it was hard to get around PAX, and even harder to get into any demos because the booths are so small and sardined in there. But this was one I was going to MAKE SURE I got in to play, and I came back several times before it was un-busy enough for me to transfer from my wheelchair to a chair and try it out. It was kind of a rigmarole to get situated, but the woman at the booth was super kind and accommodating.

And I only played about 90 seconds before I tried to get up to leave. I couldn't make a clean getaway because of the work it took to try to get the wheelchair back around to me. I had completely lost it while playing--I literally started crying and was desperately trying to get up and leave before anyone saw. The woman at the booth thought I was having trouble with playing the game and stopped me to try to help, saw I was crying, and I had to explain why.

Myst and its offshoots were HUGELY pivotal games in my life, and my anticipation of returning to a Cyan world was a Big Deal. Sitting down and playing just a minute or so, I could see the spiritual threads between Obduction and the whole Myst Universe--in the visuals, the sounds, the pacing--and felt this amazing wave of joy and gratitude and nostalgia. So much it leaked out my eyes. I babbled about all this a little bit, still trying to get away with my dignity intact.

It turns out Rand Miller was at the booth right then, and the woman at the booth asked if I wanted to meet him and tell him myself. I nearly collapsed, and said yes, of course I want to meet him. I got to shake his hand, and I was basically choke sobbing at this point, telling him how much his games meant to me, and how I was one of the first backers of the Obduction Kickstarter, and how Obduction was clearly bringing on all the feels. All the while, a camera was pointed at me.

After I finished talking to Rand, the man with the camera approached me, saying he was making a documentary about Myst, and would I consent to allow the footage to be in his documentary. Feeling foolish, but also intrigued and grateful someone was making a documentary about such a monumentally ground-breaking enterprise as Myst, I agreed and signed. That man was Philip Shane, and he is putting the finishing touches on a project he has been working on for easily half a decade and this KS is for doing just that.

I don't know if footage of me losing any vestige of cool while blabbering and blubbering at Rand will end up in the documentary or on the cutting room floor. (And I don't know which I wish for.) It all happened so fast, I didn't even get a photo with Rand. But I do know I look forward to seeing the finished documentary.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/philipshane/the-myst-documentary?ref=cggras


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